Fisher Nicholson Realtors

SUNDAY OPEN HOUSES 12-18-11

2011-12-16T16:26:00.000-08:00

7468 Ruth Drive from 12:00 to 3:00

3 bedroom, 2 bath home just completed!
$169,000 Hosted by Shelley Conrad
541-891-4494
www.fnrhomes.com/78426

4819 Altamond Drive
1:00 to 3:00

Cozy home on .49 of an acre.
2 bedrooms, 1 bath with newer kitchen, flooring, paint and windows.
Furnace about 3 years old.
Fully fenced yard, close to town with elbow room.
Separate 9x9 office.
$89,900
Hosted by Lori Graves
541-892-0544
www.fnrhomes.com/79386

“SHOULD I KEEP MY PROPERTY ON THE MARKET THROUGH THE HOLIDAYS?”

2011-12-02T10:36:00.000-08:00

“SHOULD I KEEP MY PROPERTY ON THE MARKET THROUGH THE HOLIDAYS?”

As the holidays approach, I’m always asked the same questions:

• Should we keep our property on the real estate market or take it off?

• Do we list now, wait until after the first of the year, or hold off until spring?

In the past, conventional wisdom said you shouldn’t try to sell a home during the holidays. However, the old thinking doesn’t really apply any longer — thanks to the Internet and hectic lifestyles as well as traditional rules of supply and demand.

Whether to sell or not at the end of the year has to do with your particular situation and market. But in general, here’s some real estate advice about why you should consider listing your home during the holidays, or even in January.

Buyers are always looking for properties online

Historically, potential home buyers felt that the holidays were too hectic for home shopping. They were preoccupied with planning parties, cooking meals, buying presents or planning vacations. Going out with a real estate agent to look at properties conflicted with a busy holiday schedule. This made perfect sense — before the Internet, smart phones, and tablets came along.

In my opinion, traditional buying and selling seasons have evolved as a result of instant, ubiquitous access to property listings. Someone who is serious today about buying real estate is always looking.

Our hectic lifestyles also play a role. Often, serious buyers are working hard and not shifting into holiday mode until the last minute. Even during the holiday break, they’re squeezing in work. They’re already staying “on the grid,” so why not continue monitoring the real estate listings in their area too?

The inventory — and the competition — is usually lighter during the holidays

Despite our always-on access to property listings today, there’s still a lingering perception that the year-end holidays aren’t a good time to list a home. Similarly, if your property has been sitting on the market for months, conventional wisdom says to give it a rest during the holidays. Given these factors, we end up seeing the inventory for good homes tighten up this time of year. But buyers are still out there looking at real estate and no doubt wishing there were more properties available.

In fact, if I have a seller who has been talking about selling, is truly motivated, is flexible on timing, and has a home that truly sparkles, I often suggest they list right after Thanksgiving. There’s still a window of several weeks to get buyers into your home before the end of the year. And those buyers flipping through listings at their kid’s soccer game will be so excited to see something new and awesome hitting the market — especially if there’s a lack of good inventory in their area. Those motivated soccer moms and dads are the ones who’ll take the time to see your home, regardless of what the calendar says.

Home been on the market too long? This could be a great time to lower the price or change your strategy

If your property has been sitting on the market for months, most buyers and their agents will see it as stale or overpriced and disregard it — no matter how great it is or how light the competition currently is.

In that scenario, it’s time to take action, and the year-end holidays can be a golden opportunity to shift course. Making a dramatic price reduction or overcoming some major obstacle that has been preventing the sale might be just the right thing to do this time of year. If you had lower offers early on but you weren’t ready to accept them, or you keep hearing that there are issues with the way your property shows, this could be your chance to show the market you’re listening and serious about selling. The motivated buyers will notice you and take a look.

You even stand a chance of getting a sale closed before the end of the year; I’ve seen it happen. As always, before you make any big changes, talk it over with your real estate agent.

Don’t want to be bothered during the holidays? List your property in January

Admittedly, the thought of keeping the house clean, holding open houses, and vacating to accommodate last-minute showings during the holidays is a deal killer for some. If so, consider listing your property after New Year’s Day.

Traditionally, we don’t see much inventory coming on the market in January. It’s cold in most places, and many sellers prefer to wait until the spring, a more conventional time to sell. As a result, we don’t see much inventory in January. And yet, each January my phone rings with new buyers wanting to get into the market. Or I’ll hear from on-the-fence buyers who may have lost interest earlier in the year and are now suddenly motivated again.There’s somet hing about the beginning of a new year that galvanizes people. The motivation to buy could be due to year-end tax planning, with buyers seeing how much they owe and how owning a home could help. It could be because of New Year’s resolutions to finally stop spending money on rentals and invest in property. Maybe a rich relative gave them money for a down payment (wouldn’t that be nice?).

Whatever the motivation, for sellers it means one thing: There can be an increase in demand at a time when inventory is traditionally low — resulting in less competition from other sellers. If you’re motivated to sell your home, you’ll have an even more “captive” audience in January.

Brendon DeSimone is a Realtor® and real estate expert based in San Francisco and New York.

5 Hypnotic Home Staging Techniques – and How to See Through Them

2011-11-18T15:27:00.000-08:00

We all know how important home staging is if you’re trying to sell a home. It’s equally important when you’re buying real estate for exactly the same reasons. Just like a person you meet on a blind date, staging is all about highlighting assets and deflecting your attention from any flaws. As a buyer, you have to learn to look past the staging and see what lies underneath.

That’s not as easy as it sounds because clever staging can be hypnotic. I once had a client who called this the "vortex of cute." If you hear yourself oohing and aahing over wall hangings or a fabulous sectional, watch out! Even if you’re buying a furnished home, which is rarely the case, you're focusing on the wrong thing.
Understanding hypnotic staging techniques will help you break their spells. Here are five of the most common, along with corresponding tips that will help snap you back to reality so that you can really see what you’re buying.
Hypnotic Staging See-Through #1: Tiny Furniture. I’m sure that you’ve gone through your closet at one time or another to put together an outfit that made you look smaller than you are (fine, then – I’ll speak for myself!). Well, house staging aims to accomplish the exact opposite. By opting for very small furniture, rooms can be made to appear much larger than they really are.
That can be a problem if those rooms don’t accommodate your lifestyle.
I’m not recommending you turn away from a potential home just because it won’t fit your Nana’s custom-made-for-her-13-kids-and-their-spouses dining room table. But if the 'kids bedroom" won’t fit a standard-sized bed and dresser, or you’d have to be the size of a Barbie doll to fit on the chaise lounge that the living room is sized to fit, you’ve got a problem.
Should you fall in love with a place that's heavily staged with tiny furniture, bring measurements of your furniture and a tape measure on your second look to make sure they’ll actually, comfortably fit.
Hypnotic Staging See-Through #2: Camoflauge and Cover-Ups. Just like baked cookies can make a house smell homey, gauzy wall and window coverings and soft music can make it seem positively dreamy. Downside: they can also camouflage a whole lot of nastiness. Don’t be fooled: investigate. You need to know what the natural light and sounds will be like after the gauze is gone, so ask for the music to be turned off and throw open the curtains. Then look outside the various windows to see what’s out there – I’ve seen power poles, neighbors’ patchwork roof repairs and even, once, a backyard dog fighting ring, obscured by gorgeous window coverings.
Speaking of looking, make sure you draw back any and all coverings, and open all closet and cupboard doors. I know a homeowner who only found out after she had purchased her home that the built-in microwave was powered by an extension cord. She hadn’t wanted to snoop, so (much to her electrician’s subsequent delight) she simply didn’t check behind door #17.
Hypnotic Staging See-Through #3: Activity Props You’ll Never Use. Don’t you just feel all warm and fuzzy when you walk into a room with a lovely crib and a baby mobile? See a room with well-organized shelving and a craft table and you immediately imagine yourself scrapbooking or quilting. Yoga mats and meditation pillows almost make you want to find your mantra, but also make a room seem more serene than it will ever feel when you actually live there (considering you’ve never said a single ‘om’.)
Come on, now - this is you we’re talking about. Unless you have—or plan to have—a baby or already do crafts or meditate, you need a home that will fit your lifestyle, your needs and your wish list. So when you feel yourself being swayed, just make a list of the activities you actually do in your current home and want to do in your new one, and pay attention to whether a given prospective property actually has space for those items. (I’ve heard that stamp collecting can take up almost as much space as cultivating orchids – who knew?!)
Hypnotic Staging See-Through #4: Any item that seems to be there strictly for appearances. Décor can often hide or diminish the appearance of flaws that seem like small potatoes in light of the overall fabulosity of the place, but can actually prove expensive to change. So check for items that seem like they might have been put in just for looks—including curtains, rugs, paintings and doorways with no doors on them—and then don your sleuthing hat to figure out what flaws they might be concealing. Water stains and wall cracks can be covered up (sometimes intentionally, sometimes not) by area rugs and wall hangings, and wonky floor plans can be staged as more open by taking the doors off their hinges.
Hypnotic Staging See-Through #5: Neighborhood staging. Before you get off investigative mode, you’ll also want to check out the neighborhood. Not the staged neighborhood -- the real thing, warts and cars on the lawn and screaming schoolkids and all. I've actually seen neighbors move their cars and refrain from their normal (noisy) activities when there’s an open house on the block. Even without that kind of intentional neighborhood staging, most open houses are held on a relatively calm days of the week and times of day, when traffic is light and noise is low.
To get the real scoop, make sure to visit the house at different times of day and on different days of the week in order to determine what the noise levels are like at evenings and weekend. You also want to make a point of showing up at the hours you’ll normally be coming and going, so you can check to see how easy it is to get in and out of the driveway vis-a-vis traffic and what the noise levels are like at evenings and weekend.
Agents: What staging see-throughs have you developed over the years?
Buyers and Sellers: What about you? What staging techniques have you found to be powerful – or pitiful?

By Tara on Trulia.com

Join us for the 3rd annual Scarecrow Row and Fall Festival on October 22nd from 11:00 to 2:00.

2011-10-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

JOIN US FOR THE LAST 3RD THURSDAY OF THE SEASON!

2011-09-15T15:33:00.000-07:00

PLEASE REMEMBER

2011-09-09T13:20:00.001-07:00

COME JOIN US FOR 3RD THURSDAY TONIGHT 6-9 PM

2011-08-18T15:35:00.000-07:00

COME AND ENJOY THE OIT MIXED SOCCER & VOLLEYBALL TEAMS HERE TO SERVE UP SOME FUN!

Open Houses Sunday

2011-07-29T16:37:00.000-07:00

Open Houses Sunday 7-31-11 form 1:00 to 3:00
at 7150 Hager Lane and 1315 California
for more information and directions please follow these links
www.fnrhomes.com/79178 or www.fnrhomes.com/78972

OPEN HOUSE

2011-07-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

COME BY THE OPEN HOUSE SUNDAY 7-24-11 FROM 12:00 TO 2:00
1010 LYNNEWOOD BLVD. HOSTED BY TRACY LEDGERWOOD

FOR DETAILS GO TO WWW.FNRHOMES.COM/79099

COME JOIN US FOR 3RD THURSDAYS ON JULY 21, STARTS AT 6 PM

2011-07-15T16:18:00.000-07:00

OPEN HOUSE

2011-07-08T14:26:00.001-07:00

COME TO THE OPEN HOUSE SUNDAY 7-10-11 FROM 12:00 TO 2:30 AT 4704 ALPINE DRIVE IN KLAMATH FALLS OREGON.
FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO WWW.FNRHOMES.COM/79006

OPEN HOUSE

2011-07-01T16:06:00.000-07:00

OPEN HOUSE SUNDAY 7-3-11 FROM 1:00 TO 3:00
10529 SCHILLING CIRCLE FOR DETAILS GO TO WWW.FNRHOMES.COM/79180

Come downtown Klamath Falls tomorrow 6-9 pm for Third Thursday! Stop by our office at 403 Main Street to meet Tater from the Klamath Falls GEMS.

2011-06-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

JOIN US AT KIGER STADIUM TONIGHT

2011-06-10T15:42:00.001-07:00

JOIN US AT KIGER STADIUM TONIGHT TO WATCH THE GEMS VS THE APPLESOX AT 7:05 PM, THE FIRST 1000 FANS WILL RECEIVE SEAT CUSHIONS COURTESY OF FISHER NICHOLSON REALTORS, The "HOME" Team!

WIN GEMS TICKETS AT OUR OPEN HOUSE EVENT

2011-06-03T15:40:00.000-07:00

5 Ways to Add Luxury to Your Regular Home

2011-05-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

The 5 Most Common Complaints of Short Sale and REO Buyers (and How to Avoid Them)

2011-05-06T15:23:00.001-07:00

We are celebrating a year of offering True Local Mobile Real Estate Search Service to Klamath County and Northern California! Now GPS enabled!!

2011-04-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

Open House Sunday 4-17-11 from 1:00 to 3:00

2011-04-15T14:21:00.000-07:00

2011-04-14T15:07:00.000-07:00

for more information go to www.DebraKnows.com

Sunday Open Houses 4-10-11

2011-04-08T12:46:00.000-07:00

Sunday Open Houses 3/27/11

2011-03-25T13:46:00.000-07:00

2011-03-18T15:24:00.001-07:00

Sunday Open House ads 3/13/11

2011-03-11T10:30:00.000-08:00

Sunday Open Houses

2011-03-03T16:52:00.001-08:00

Sunday Open Houses

2011-02-25T11:30:00.000-08:00

Sunday Open House Ads 2/20/2011

2011-02-17T14:43:00.000-08:00

SUNDAY OPEN HOUSES 2-13-2011

2011-02-11T09:15:00.001-08:00

Open House Ads Sunday 1-30-11

2011-01-27T15:45:00.001-08:00

Open Houses

2011-01-20T12:11:00.001-08:00

Sunday Open Houses 1-16-11

2011-01-14T16:46:00.001-08:00

Open House Ad Sunday 1-9-11

2011-01-07T17:09:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year!

2010-12-30T15:23:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas from The HOME Team

2010-12-22T13:51:00.001-08:00

2010-12-20T11:09:00.000-08:00

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson –Trulia.com

5 Things to Do Now to Sell Your Home in 2011
It's resolution time, folks. Last week, we offered some immediate action items for those who want 2011 to be the year they become homeowners. By popular demand, this week it's sellers' turn! Whether you are simply trying to decide whether to sell your home next year, or it's been on the market before and you are trying to revamp your approach to get it sold next year, here are 5 things you can do during what's left of 2010 to position yourself for home selling success in 2011.

1. Reality check yourself . . . before you wreck yourself (and the sale of your home, that is). The age-old real estate advice to wanna-be sellers is to get real about pricing - and like my sweet Grandma's advice about always rinsing the cake batter out with cold water, never hot, the caution against overpricing is advice that will stand you in good stead. (And that cold water trick works, btw - rinsing with hot starts to cook the batter to the bowl! But I digress) Before you even get to pricing, though, first you should get real about what your goals really are. Why do you want or need to sell? And how badly - how important is it to you? What would it take to make selling make sense? If you even think you may want to sell your home next year, get clear on these items in your own head before you even talk to anyone outside of your household. Your very next step is to look at your mortgage account statement online and find out what you owe, and find out what your payoff amount would be.

Step 3? Get a reality-based idea of what your home is worth - by talking with several local real estate agents who have a strong, recent track record of succesfully selling homes in your area; these are the folks who'll have a strong idea of what recent sales are the most comparable to yours, and what a local buyer would agree to pay for your home, as well as what it might appraise at. If 3 agents give you one range, and one gives you a bizarrely higher number, be skeptical about the outlier; there are rare bad apples out there in the agent world who will tell you whatever it takes to get the listing. Get real and stay there - don't fall prey to the fallacy that your home is worth more than others, for no substantive reason beyond the fact that, well, it's yours.

Then, move toward making a decision about whether selling actually makes sense for you. Whatever you do, don't let your mental GPS steer you anywhere near that fantasyland where all your plans for selling, moving, etc. rest on the hypothetical that you can get 25% more than your home's actual fair market value. That sort of magical thinking costs you and your agent the time, inconvenience and money it takes to try to conjure up a sale that just ain't gonna happen, and that doesn't even count the opportunity costs of other things you could be doing with those resources. If your home's current value is bizarrely less than you want or need to move on, consider a short sale and price it appropriately or consider staying put and sprucing up your home so it better suits your needs - but don't price it at your "wishful thinking" price and set yourself and your agent up for failure.

2. Figure out the lay of your local land. National blogs and media outlets offer all sorts of useful advice about whether, how and when to sell your home, but there's one thing that sort of advice cannot convey: what's going on in your local market. Get active in Trulia Voices, ask questions and read blogs in your local market and start talking with the real estate brokers and agents from your area who are actively blogging, listing properties and answering questions. They can give you the hyperlocal essentials you need to knows. Sure, it's a buyer's market nationwide, on average. But if you live in Omaha, that may mean that homes sell at or near asking in 45 days or less; in Mesa, Arizona, your home could stay on the market 6 months and sell for 30% below asking. In my neck of the woods, it's not bizarre for homes to sell at 5 percent above asking, in two weeks - and that's still a buyer's market compared to the 20% above asking sales that were common in 2006.

Every market is different, and you can neither know what to expect when you list your home for sale, nor implement smart strategies for getting your home sold without knowing what's going on in yours.

3. Tour nearby Open Houses. Your job, as the seller of your home, is to present a compelling package to buyers - compelling enough to make them sign away 30 years of their lives and the vast majority of their worldly possessions in exchange for your home (kinda ups the ante, doesn't it?). To do that, it helps to get inside the minds of your home's target buyers. And to do that, you need to think how they think and see what they see.

Visiting the other homes your target buyers will also see online and/or in real life will give you a sense for how your home's price and condition will measure up to the competition. Go view other homes that are for sale in your area, making sure you see at least a few that fall into each of these categories: (a) properties in your neighborhood or similar neighborhoods, (b) homes in your home's general price range, all around town, and (c) homes that have similar numbers of bedrooms, bathrooms and square feet - no matter what the price. You'll likely end up seeing homes in a wide range when it comes to price and condition; know that your home, to sell, will need to beat these on one or both measures. Also, if you try to go to at least a few open houses, rather than just asking your agent to show them to you at your convenience, you'll also get a sense for what sort of buyer traffic you can expect from open houses, and you can even chat with those home's listing agents about local market dynamics and what factors they believe may help or hurt that particular listing.

4. Formulate a plan: in A-B-C order. Collaborate with your broker or agent to put an action plan in place. Make sure you address: list price, list date, showing arrangements and the property prep work (see #5, below) that your agent recommends you do prior to listing the place. To minimize the stress of a somewhat inevitably stressful experience (i.e., selling your home!), work with your agent on Plans B and C now, too! What is the average number of days a home stays on the market in your area before it sells (DOM)? (Hint: don't look at the ones that never sold, because you don't want to be part of that group!) Decide up front if your home sits on the market for X number of days with no offer, you'll lower the price to Y. Also cover alternative marketing plans/vehicles for your home, and even calendar when you might start to offer transactional incentives, like closing cost credits, interest rate buy-downs, throwing in personal property and even making reverse offers to buyers who have expressed an interest but can't seem to get off the fence. At some point along the timeline, include a pause where your agent can interview buyer's brokers who have shown your home to collect buyer feedback, so you can course correct your pricing, marketing or staging strategies accordingly.

5. Do your prep work - fix and pre-pack. If you are sure you're selling in 2011, and want to put your holiday vacay time to good use, make a list of all those little repairs you've been wanting to do forever, call up your neighborhood handyperson and get 'em done. Loose knobs and handles, double-hung windows that are painted shut, the frayed carpet on the steps, that broken bathroom tile - fixing those things can give your place just the patina and polish it'll take to compete with the ample, low-priced competition you'll have next year.

It may be tough for non-distressed home sellers to compete with foreclosures and short sales on price. But one area where individual home sellers usually can best the competition is CONDITION! Your home can present to buyers in tip-top condition in a way that most foreclosures and short sales cannot. And this includes staging - most foreclosures will be shown vacant, and/or with the debris of the former owner's lives tragically littering the premises. Short sales are usually (but not always) a bit better, but are most often shown fully occupied, furnished and cluttered - just as the owners live in them, because of the distressed nature of the sale. As a non-distressed home's seller, it behooves you to ensure that your home's curb appeal is at it's best and that throughout the interior, the buyer is able to visualize the lovely life they can, scratch that, WILL live once they buy and move into your home. Depersonalizing and decluttering are essential to this staging effort; in fact, one wise Trulia Voices contributor tells her sellers to go ahead and start "pre-packing" - put most of the personal items that make your home yours in a box, like you're getting ready to move (which you are!) and leave your place in as close to model-home move-in condition as possible

Sunday Open House Ads 12-12-10

2010-12-10T16:05:00.000-08:00

Sunday Open House Ads 12-5-10

2010-12-03T14:52:00.000-08:00

Sunday Open House Ads 11-28-10

2010-11-24T14:14:00.001-08:00

The HOME Team supports Assistance League's Operation School Bell

2010-11-24T12:02:00.001-08:00

Sunday Open House Ads

2010-11-19T17:01:00.001-08:00

Sunday Open House Ad

2010-11-13T12:45:00.001-08:00

Drop Box

2010-11-05T16:58:00.000-07:00

Sunday Open House Ads 10-24-2010

2010-10-22T16:48:00.001-07:00

Sunday Open House Ads 10-17-2010

2010-10-15T16:44:00.001-07:00

Sunday Open House

2010-10-02T13:19:00.001-07:00

WELCOME LORI GRAVES!

2010-09-24T15:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday Open House Ads

2010-09-24T14:33:00.000-07:00

Flag flying at Fisher Nicholson Realtors

2010-09-10T17:25:00.001-07:00

Please take a moment to read the story of the flag flying at our office.

Open Houses Sunday 9-12-10

2010-09-10T17:23:00.000-07:00

Why Wait? Buy Now

2010-08-27T13:25:00.000-07:00

Please open link below

http://www.heraldandnews.com/app/flash-files/fnr-sky-banner.html

Open Houses 8-29-2010

2010-08-27T13:20:00.001-07:00

Open Houses Sunday 8-22-2010

2010-08-20T15:10:00.001-07:00

3rd Thursdays

2010-08-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

At Fisher Nicholson Realors,

we are excited about Real Estate!

Join us tomorrow for 3rd Thursdays

6:00 to 9:00 pm downtown Klamath Falls

The OIT Women's Valleyball team will present Exhibition Play
Mia & Pia's Road Brew Crew will be here
Plus, we'll have music by local guitarist Sean Gorey
SEE YOU HERE!

Sunday Ads

2010-08-13T15:57:00.000-07:00

Please visit our website at http://www.fnrhomes.com/ for details on all listings in Klamath County and Northern California.

Sunday Open House and Listing Ads

2010-07-23T15:07:00.000-07:00

Please visit http://www.fnrhomes.com/ to view all our listings! Please view the e-tours available on nearly every property. You can even access our site from your smart phone!

Open House and Listing Ads July 18, 2010

2010-07-16T16:51:00.000-07:00

2010-07-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

Concerts on the Green

Cascade Summer Concerts on the Green Friday July 16th 5:50 to 8:00 pm on the Running Y driving range. For more information visit www.facebook.com/runningy

Just one more reason to live in beautiful Klamath Falls Oregon.

Let the experts at "The Home Team" Fisher Nicholson Realtors take you on a private tour of the outstanding homes and home sites at the Running Y Ranch Resort.

Stop by our office at 5391 Running Y Road to visit with one our friendly brokers and find out why Real Estate is our passion!

visit us on our website at www.fnrhomes.com

Third Thursdays

2010-07-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

Fisher Nicholson Realtors, "The Home Team" would like to invite you to join us for The Third Thursday event downtown Klamath Falls, July 15, 2010 from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. We are located at 403 Main Street on the corner of 4th and Main. Please stop by for beer and wine tasting by Mias and Pias, light appetizers and enter our drawing! Stop by and see why we say we love it downtown! See you here!